Posterized: Duncan Jones

Duncan Jones has had a tumultuous few years so we wanted to honor him with a quick Posterized today. In January the 45 year old filmmaker lost his father David Bowie (he's the superstar's only son). His first child is due this month. His other new baby, the long-gestating video game big screen adaptation Warcraft is getting savaged by the critics.

And yet...

It wasn't so long ago that he was getting 'Hot New Director' drooling from the media, starting off strong with the sci-fi drama Moon. His second film Source Code wasn't as ecstatically received but performed decently. Three films isn't much to go on so we shall maintain high hopes. Do you think he will rally with a fourth film and make good on that initial promise? His next sci-fi film -- he's not straying from his preferred genre -- is called Mute, and stars Alexander Skarsgård as a silent bartender and Paul Rudd as some kind of mysterious doctor.  We don't generally think of Paul Rudd as mysterious but we're willing to give it a shot. (There's some internet speculation that Sam Rockwell will reprise his Moon character -- which would be very intriguing given the ending of Moon -- since Jones has indicated that Mute takes place in the same universe.)

How many of his films have you seen?
And if you've seen the first two, are you planning to hit Warcraft despite the reviews? 

20:11 Water For Hanna's Insidious Code

Year in Review Fun!. Herewith the 20th minute and 11th second of the movies of 2011 in chronological order of US release date. It's like flipping channels for snapshots of the film year! For those who like a challenge, I've written the film titles in invisible ink (you can highlight to see them) below the screencap. What kind of memories does this bring back? Do these tiny glimpses make you want to see the movies in question?

january | february | march 

Part 4: April

Our records show that 1,812 calls ended at the moment of the explosion. 52 of those calls were tethered to the cell tower nearest the train so one of those calls was made by our bomber..."

SOURCE CODE ...reviewed in brief (10 words)

We'll conduct some further testing. It's only been a couple of days. It could take a little longer." 

INSIDIOUS

My name is Dr. Burton. Would you like to talk to me?"

HANNA... this movie seemed very well liked by readers. And it was definitely a missed opportunity on this blog that we never properly discussed. Apologies!

Would you like to talk to Dr. Burton?
How about these other 2011 characters after the jump...?

Click to read more ...

Curio: Poster Designs by Matt Needle

Alexa here. Matt Needle is a freelance designer living in the UK with a knack for poster design. I've been following his work since last year, when I was on the lookout for cool indie posters for Inception.  Lately he's added so many new designs to his portfolio that I can barely keep up! Here are some highlights from his film poster collection; check out his flickr to see more, including some great music and television posters (and a very cool Don Draper).  All are available for purchase from his bigcartel shop.

Click to see Hitchcock, Miyazaki and more...

Click to read more ...

10 Word Reviews (A.K.A. Nathaniel Catches Up)

As per usual, though I maintain a healthy writing clip to fill The Film Experience with new material for vous, I have some sort of mental block about traditional film reviews. So let's just get everything unreviewed that's in theaters (or in one case, HBO) out of the way right this very instant. I got places to be! We haven't talked about most of these so why not?

Deneuve, Viard and Rennier: comic successes in POTICHE

POTICHE
in which a trophy wife exceeds expectations and reforms her husband's business.
10WR: Knowing hilarious riffs on: Deneuve, 70s, sexism; But souffle deflates.  B/B+

RANGO
in which an abandoned pet lizard becomes a hero in a thirsty desert town
10WR: Surreal weirdness grounded by Western tropes. So ugly it's beautiful. B+

MILDRED PIERCE
in which Todd Haynes adapts the famous novel for an HBO miniseries in five parts
10WR: Glacial pacing but slow build payoffs. Beautifully costumed, lensed. B/B-
EPILOGUE: I'll just come right out and say it. This was not the "event" I was hoping for, neither in performance or in direction. But I did like it. Needless to say, I'll stick to the Joan Crawford gladly, despite them being two very different things.

SOURCE CODE
in which Jake Gyllenhaal keeps reexperiencing the same 8 minutes to solve a bombing
10WR: Perfectly servicable but stumbles exiting train; Needs more existential terror.  C+

MEET MONICA VELOUR
in which a washed up porn star (Kim Cattral) is pursued by a nerdy teenage fan
10WR: Cattral: effortful limited success; Movie: suffers badly from hermetic POV. C-

Finally, I do hope some of you will take in POTICHE if it plays in your town. It's quite funny and one should always support good non-English language films while they're still in theaters so that they keep releasing them; their market share is sadly ever dwindling. Potiche has done well abroad ($21 million) but is struggling in US theaters ($280,000). The cast is just delightful. I almost always like Jérémie Rénier (In Bruges) and the running gag about his lovelife has maybe the best punchline in the movie. It also amuses me that his name is so much like Jeremy Renner's and that they almost share a birthday (January 6th and 7th respectively though Rénier is ten years younger). It goes without saying that Deneuve fills my heart with joy as she always has (she's in my top ten actresses of all time list). Any Karen Viard fans out there? I'd love some recommendations as to other films as she's quite funny but I haven't seen her in many things.